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Monday, October 20, 2014

Freakshow Wonderland at the State Fair

Earlier this year I visited the local Mountain State Fair here in the Mountains of NC. Sadly, for the past several years my beloved Freak Show has vanished. Last year I received word from a close friend of mine that the larger state fair in Raleigh, NC still had a freak show. I waited 12 long months and finally made my way to the state fair in Raleigh and I was not disappointed.

Of course the NC state fair had all the modern conveniences of a fair. Like over the top, ridiculously unhealthy food stuffs.....

1,400 pound Pumpkins......

Companionship hay.....

Rides, such as the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Ferris Wheel.

And the Zombie Apocalypse dark ride, which my 10 year old daughter rode without blinking an eye.

And this weird dance club themed fun house.....

And what would the fair be without a little old time religion.

We found this odd little traveling bear exhibit, which I was happy to check out. I can never pass up an opportunity to see some bears.

Our three dollars were not wasted, as we not only got to see some bears up close and personal, but we got to see a man snuggling with the bears like they were a bunch of puppies.

Check it out....

Of course all this is awesome, but the reason I came was for the freak show. The hunt begin. We located several one-off exhibits. The first of these exhibits was "The World's Smallest Horse".

I paid my dollar and headed up into the barn. The smallest horse was in a pit in the center. He was small, there is no denying that, but I'm not even sure if he was the smallest horse that I have personally seen. I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I can't help myself.

Keeping with the theme of smallestness, we came across a booth advertising the World's smallest Woman.

You see that little box that says $10,000 dollar reward? She's in there. What makes this experience different is that you walk around back and suddenly you are inches away from "Tiny Tina", who is a real live person. Tina is indeed very small. She was kind enough to let me take her picture.

She was pretty adorable.

Next up: The Snake Woman.

Now tell me that you could say no to that! We headed in to find human head on the end of a motionless snake's body talking smack to the onlookers. There was signs asking not to take pictures, but again: I can't help myself. I slyly slid my iphone along the grate and snuck a picture.

Unfortunately, Snake Lady saw what I was doing and yelled at me. Apparently she wasn't as gracious as Tiny Tina.

After these awesome displays of freakishness we came across this......

This little show billed itself as "The Museum of World Oddities"

The beautiful carnival banners had me practically drooling...........

Of note, their Fiji Mermaid sign actually depicted the mermaid in its creepy form, not the deceptive "beautiful women" form.

And they do not disappoint.....

Let's run down the exhibits in this wonderful little museum.

The "World's Largest Women" appears in fiberglass form locked in some weird box.

Most horrifying was there collection of non-pickled punks, or replicas of deformed babies.......

Note the disclaimer.....

This disclaimer is necessary, as the exhibit can presented as educational and therefore cannot be seen as exploitative and ghoulish. Drug abuse could lead to horrible things, such as your baby being born with facial deformities....

4 comments:

Wowee! I love this so much; I keep rallying for the return of the Freak Show, but I guess it's still alive (or pickled) and well. Living in California, there is no way we could ever see exhibits like these (we are far too PC). I guess my next road trip needs to be to North Carolina! Through the whole post I kept thinking how much weirder the people are who run these attractions than the actual exhibits. Thanks for sharing!

There is the Venice Beach Freak Show in California, but I've never been, so I don't know how good it is. And you are right, Carnies are their own special breed http://www.thecarpetbagger.org/2014/06/an-ode-to-carnies.html

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The Carpetbagger

Welcome to The Carbetbagger Blog. I moved to The South in 2000 after living my whole life in the Midwest. I was instantly fascinated with the rich and wonderful culture that surrounded me. I have spent the last decade traveling, documenting and photographing. Here I give my outsider's view of all the strange and fascinating in The Southern United states. Occasionally, I will talk about some other random quirkiness that I find interesting. I am a sucker for Roadside Attractions, folk heroes and anything else that is odd and wonderful. I hope you all enjoy my perspective. All photographs on this blog are taken by me unless otherwise noted.
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